Weekly Roundup - October 15, 2016

Curated list of articles on dividend growth investing, financial independence, freedom and passive income
Happy Weekend!  Check out what's been going on in my world and some of the best articles from around the blogosphere.
What a great week!  We had some awesome weather down here in Houston although it looks like we'll be staying with highs in the upper 80's until Thursday-ish of this coming week.  I sure hope they're right in their forecast because as of now the expectations are for highs in the mid 60's.  I'm sure it won't last that long because our cold, okay "cool" months, are usually January/February.  So I'll gladly take it whenever we get it and enjoy it while it lasts.


If you've been paying attention I haven't been making any purchases of dividend growth stocks; however, that doesn't mean I've just been sitting on the sidelines.  I've been very busy in the options market with 2 new positions opened this past week and 4 so far this month.  That'll likely be about the end of things for a while until I get a chance to close out some of the positions or they expire which 2 of them end in November.

One of the big things I've learned or rather had reinforced with my options activity is just how important keeping your costs low is.  Currently my brokerage charges me $8.00 to open an option which is steep when you're talking about option premiums in the $50-$100 range.  That's giving up anywhere from 8-16% of my premium and potential return to costs alone.  

So I'm very seriously contemplating moving funds to a new brokerage with lower costs.  One of the lowest cost discount brokerage firms is Interactive Brokers, Dividend Growth Investor has a great review of the brokerage.  The costs are much lower, think $0.70 for an option contract instead of $8.00.  

I'm not sure if I'll be moving my taxable brokerage account there although my 401k needs to find a new home as a Rollover IRA and IB just might be it.  The only real downside of IB is that they do charge a $7.50 quarterly fee to have an IRA there which is steep considering there's no fee options available.  

However, thanks are owed to Dividend Growth Investor for making me think about things from a different perspective.  The commission savings alone would make up for the fee.  On my current portfolio's balance of ~$140k that $30 fee would only be 0.02%, call that an expense ratio, if I went with a more passive approach to the portfolio.

My plans for the 401k/Rollover funds is to be a bit more active in the options market.  I still don't see much that I want to add at this time and so I'll take a more measured approach to getting the funds invested.  

So before I finally move my IRA somewhere I was hoping to get some other thoughts/ideas from all of you to get an idea of what brokerages you use or are looking at for a secondary account.  Keep in mind this is for a portfolio that will be a bit more active, especially in options, as opposed to the more traditional buy and hold passive index funds.

On to the Roundup


In case you missed them, here's the posts from Passive-Income-Pursuit over the past week.
Also, be sure to sign up to receive posts via email and to follow me on Twitter@JC_PIP so you don't miss anything.  You can also follow me on Facebook or Pinterest if you prefer those methods to get your daily fix and keep up to date on happenings around here.

Once again I'd like to say thanks to each and every one of you that read, commented, and shared posts from here this past week.  I think this dividend growth investing and financial independence community is amazing and the openness from everyone is awesome.  Thanks again!

Now on to the links!


Why I Am Now Interested In CVS Corporation on Seeking Alpha by Chuck Carnevale

Quarterly Update - Q3 2016 by Roadmap2Retire


Quarterly Review, Q3 2016 by DivGro

A Guide to Conservative Income Producing Option Strategies for Dividend Stocks by Simply Safe Dividends

You Don't Need That Thing by Our Next Life

Realty Income Corp - Closed Contract by Options Hunting

Dividend Aristocrat in Focus #2: AT&T by Sure Dividend

My Plan To Go From Zero to FIRE in 10 Years by Dividend Ten

Two Dividend Growth Stocks On My Radar by Dividend Growth Investor

September Dividend Income From YOU The Bloggers! by Dividend Diplomats

Baby DivHut Dividend Income Portfolio Update - Q3 2016 by DivHut

The Jeff Bezos Regret Minimization Framework by A Wealth of Common Sense

Selling Off A Competitive Business Advantage by The Conservative Income Investor

Also, if you're looking for investment ideas, A Frugal Family's Journey keeps a list of stock analyses and recent buys from fellow bloggers.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Image courtesy of Gubgib via FreeDigitalPhotos

Comments

  1. Ive heard lots of great things about IB too and have been contemplating moving my funds. Lately, they have started offering tax sheltered accounts in Canada which wasnt available in the past. This is really tempting for me to move my main brokerages instead of staying with others where the transaction fees are high.

    Thanks for including my quarterly report in the roundup. Have a great rest of the weekend
    R2R

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. R2R,

      IB is definitely looking good and anyway to lower costs is always welcomed. I don't know if I'll move my regular brokerage account there because I don't want to go through the hassle of it, plus I like having some of the information that my current brokerage provides. However, my 401k/Rollover is definitely going to be moving and it's just a matter of where to and IB is high on that list. I wish there wasn't a fee because it's an IRA but commission savings will more than make up for it if I'm active with the account.

      It was a long day today but it was great to see a bunch of people we hadn't seen in a while. Although I'm looking forward to lounging tomorrow and watching some football.

      All the best.

      Delete
  2. Thank you so much for the inclusion and the mention!

    As we talked on Twitter, even with the fee, it may make sense to use IB as long as you keep making 3-4 investments each year in that IRA. I like how they keep investing in technology, which is why a lot o experienced investors use IB ( and those who manage money also)

    I am looking forward to seeing what you decide to do!

    DGI




    ReplyDelete

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